STYLE AND STYLISTICS: AN OVERVIEW

PRASANNATA RAMTIRTHE
Research Scholar
Savitribai Phule Pune University
Pune. (MS) INDIA

Stylistics is a systematic way of exploring a literary text especially the language of a text and
tries to explain how language creates meaning, style and certain effect. The study of stylistics
is considered as one of the significant tools to analyze a literary piece from the point of view
of language. There are a number of scholars who are engaged in the interpretation of
different genres of literature such as prose, poetry, drama, short story and one-act-play with
the help of Stylistics. The interpretation of poetry is possible with the help of some of the
important terms in stylistics. The students of literature are to be made aware of the fact that
without looking at the individual and collective usages of the lexical items, it is not possible
to comprehend the meaning of a poem of any sort. The present article is exclusively devoted
to the rudimentary study of Stylistics, an important branch of linguistics. In the beginning, it
offers a historical background of Stylistics as a linguistic discipline examines strength and
weakness and unfolds its scope and limitations following important definitions.

Key words: Style, Stylistics, Linguistics, Deviation, Diachronic view, Foregrounding,

Figurative use of Lnaguage.

Stylistics: A Diachronic View

Historically speaking, the study of style can be traced back to the literary scholarships of the
Greeks and Romans in the fifth century BC. In this period the rhetoric was the dominant art.
This discipline was a set of rules and strategies which enable writers and orators „to speak
well‟. In other words, they fully decorated the language with all the figures and tropes to
bring about changes in the feelings and opinions of the audience.

Stylistics as a sub-discipline came in the limelight in the second half of the twentieth century
with the publication of a number of books that included many articles on Stylistics. One of
the articles was written by Roman Jacobson in Sebeok‟s book entitled as “Closing Statement:
Linguistics and Poetics”. Jacobson is an important figure in the historical development of
Stylistics as a promising branch of linguistics.

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Another important point in the historical development of Stylistics is that it was an extension
of literary criticism in the early twentieth century. The main focus of stylistics was on the
literary texts rather than the author. In the nineteenth century, the focus was on the author. In
Great Britain two important critics such as I. A. Richards and William Empson came on the
scene and changed the direction of literary criticism. They more concentrated on the literary
texts. They formed the opinion that readers get affected by the text. This approach is known
as practical criticism. It is matched by a similar critical movement in the USA, associated
with Cleanth Brooks, René Wellek, Austin Warren and others, called New Criticism. These
two movements proved crucial in the historical development of Stylistics because they laid
more emphasis on the literary texts especially on the language of the texts. These critics did
not analyse the language of texts very much, but, rather, paid very close attention to the
language of the texts.

A different, although conceptually similar, tradition of linguistic stylistics was established by

British linguists in the 1930s and came to be called British Contextualism. The most
important proponents of British Contextualism include John Rupert Firth, M.A.K. Halliday,
and John Sinclair.

Another development in Stylistics is attributed to the scholars from Eastern Europe and
Russia which is known as Russian Formalism. This group consisted of linguists, literary
critics and psychologists. They were instrumental in introducing the textual study in the texts
which is known as foregrounding theory. This view suggested that some parts of texts had
more effect on readers than others in terms of interpretation. The textual parts were
linguistically deviant or specially patterned in some way, thus making them psychologically
salient (or 'foregrounded') for readers. The Russian Formalists were, in effect, the first
stylisticians. But their work was not understood in the west because of the effects of the
Russian Revolution in 1917. After the revolution, formalism fell out of favour and, in any
case, academic communication between what became the Soviet Union and Western Europe
and North America virtually ceased.

Roman Jakobson became one of the most influential linguists of the twentieth century, and
the reason for his considerable influence on Stylistics, in addition to his own academic
brilliance, was because he linked various schools of Linguistics together. He left Moscow at
the time of the Russian Revolution and moved to Prague, where he became a member of the
Prague Structuralist circle, who were also very interested in the linguistic structure of texts
and how they affected readers.

What is Stylistics?

At the outset, it must be made clear that there are a number of definitions of stylistics given
by many scholars in the field of linguistics. However, the following definitions are vital as

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they provide us sufficient knowledge to understand the meaning of the term „stylistics:

Important Definitions:

1. The general definition of stylistics is that it is the study of style of the writers or the
literary artists,
2. According to Lucas (1995) stylistics is the effective use of language in prose to make
statements or arouse emotions.
3. Stylistics can be also defined as the study of different styles that are present in the text
or the utterance of the character.
4. According to David Crystal stylistics is the study of certain aspects of language
variations as a part of linguistics.
5. G. N. Leech one of the renowned linguist opines that stylistics is the linguistic
approach to literature explaining the relation between language and its artistic
function,
6. H. G. Widdowson says that stylistics involves both literary criticism and linguistics.
7. According to K. T. Khader stylistics an intensive study of literary text on an advanced
level.
8. In the opinion of Thomas Kane stylistics is the study of linguistic choices the writer
makes to express his/her thought and feeling in an effective way.
9. Stylistics can be also defined as the study of the language deviations or the choice of
language outside of the range of normal language.
10. Stylistics may be defined as the study of language use according to the situation or
the circumstances.

The above definitions are helpful in understanding the nature of stylistics.

The Nature and Scope of Stylistics

As we know that very individual is known from his or her style. Every person in the world
possesses some kind of style suitable for him/her. Similarly, every writer has his or her own
style of writing. It is observed that every writer makes use of linguistic choices to describe
the situation and to portray his characters. Therefore, it is interesting to study how the writers
make use of certain structures in their writings. Stylistics deals with a wide range of language
varieties and styles that are possible in creating different texts. There are certain possibilities
for the writer to make the selection of the words from a wide range of storehouse of the
words such as synonyms, antonyms, homonyms, metonymy etc. The writer also makes use of
phonological, morphological and syntactic systems of linguistics depending on the situations.
Stylistics is the distinctive way to use language. Any prose writer or a poet or a playwright
uses his unique method to create a text. The choice of the linguistic units made by the writer
reflects his/her ego and the socio-cultural aspects in which the characters and situations exist.

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Paul Simpson (2004) says:

Why should we do stylistics? To do stylistics is to explore language, and, more

specifically, to explore creativity in language use. Doing stylistics thereby enriches
our ways of thinking about language and, as observed; exploring language offers a
substantial purchase on our understanding of (literary) texts. (p.3)

Since stylistics is the borderline discipline between language and literature, it focuses on
language use in both literary and non-literary texts. It takes into account many disciplines
such as literature, sociology, psychology, philosophy and so on. Stylistics looks at style from
the following perspectives:

1. Style as Choice: In this, the writer makes certain choices of the words an expressions
to describe the situations or the characters. The poets make use of certain words or
expressions to highlight his or her intensely felt emotions.

2. Style as Deviation: Here, the writer/poet avoids the standard form of writing and
makes use of deviations to sound stylistically significant. In other words, the writer
does not conform to the standard form of writing. Thus, we can say that the writer has
a poetic license to break the rules of grammar.

3. Style as Situation: Here, the situation is the context in which the text comes to life.
The situation could be social, cultural, political or pragmatic. We come to know the
situation in a literary text via the style of the writer.

4. Style as the Temporal Phenomenon: Here, the time factor plays an important role.
When the writer wants to write a text, he/she has to consider the time factor. For
example, Shakespeare wrote the plays and used the language that wsa relevant to his
period. The modern playwrights do not write the same way as Shakespeare did.
Therefore, there is a marked difference between Old English and Modern English.

5. Style as Individual: It is often said that man is known by his style. Every individual is
unique in his style of speech and writing. There are some specific characteristic
features associated with particular individuals.

There is a tremendous scope for the study of stylistics. There are many writers in the world
who have written about the direct experiences of their lives. The language styles of the
writers are worth studying to understand the nature of the linguistic behavior of his/her
characters. Individual styles are also worth studying because they give us insight of the
circumstances in which the individual moves. The significance of the literary language
cannot be avoided. We can appreciate the literary texts and try to understand the nature of

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language used in the texts. The literary texts are better understood with the tools used in
stylistics such as deviations, figures of speech, foregrounding, discourse etc. Thus, the study
of stylistics paves the way to understand the text at the advanced level bringing out the
nuances of the language use.

Strengths and Limitations of Stylistics

Stylistics is one of the important tools to examine and analyze a literary text. It is an
interesting branch of linguistics which studies the different styles of language. There are,
however some advantages and disadvantages of the study of stylistics.

The strengths of stylistics are illustrated as follows:

1. The strength of stylistics lies in the fact that the students at the advanced level are
made aware of the social aspect of language and language variation.
2. The study of stylistics helps the students to develop their analytical skills. The stylistic
analysis of a literary text helps them to arrive at an understanding from language point
of view. For instance, when the students are asked to do the stylistic analysis of the
poem „Daffodils‟, they are expected to study the diction, the use of figures of speech,
imagery and poetic devices related to sound etc. Thus, the students‟ ability to interpret
the text enhanced.
3. This kind of study will help the students to use the this analytical skill in the spoken
and written discourse.
4. Stylistics does not only help in analyzing the literary texts but it also helps the
students to use language effectively in written and oral communication in various
speech situation.
5. We can understand the power and solidarity relations with the help of stylistics. In
other words, stylistics would be an understanding of how conversational turn-taking
patterns in novels and plays can reflect power relations.
6. One can understand the figurative use of language including deviations and the
principles of foregrounding while studying the stylistics
7. The goal of the stylistics is not only to describe the formal features of the text, but it
also takes into account the functional significance.
8. The readers of the texts are benefited by the study of stylistics with regard to the
rhyme, sound patterns, language variation, dialects and registers.
9. The students of literature will understand the point of view of the writer in writing the
texts.
10. The students are also become aware of the structures of language including sevel
kinds of ambiguities used in the text.

Thus, the strengths of stylists are manifold and the students at the higher level become more

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competent in the use of language because they are constantly aware of the style in
communication. Thus stylistics can help us enhance our power of understanding of the text. It
will also help us to increase our knowledge of the language use.

However, there are certain limitations of stylistics. The following are some of the limitations:

1. Firstly, study of stylistics is limited to the phonological, morphological and syntactic

relations of the words and expressions. It cannot go beyond and study the meaning.
2. Secondly, the limitations o stylistics is that it does not take into account the social or
cultural meaning of the words and expressions,
3. Thirdly, the contextual or the associative meaning does not form the study of
stylistics.
4. Fourthly, pragmatic meaning of the utterances is not considered in stylistics.
5. Finally, this kind of study is limited to the structures of the language

Conclusion

This article is useful for those who would like to pursue the studies in Stylistic as an
interesting discipline. The readers are likely to generate interest in the area of Stylistics as
language is at the core of understanding and interpreting literature especially poetry. The
language of poetry is better understood with the help of useful terms and devices in poetry.
The language of a poet is different from the language of a prose writer in the sense that a poet
uses unconventional language adopting the ways of deviation and foregrounding whereas a
prose writer follows the conventionality of language use. Therefore, one must investigate in
the usages of the lexical items and the exceptional sentence constructions in order to derive
the aesthetic pleasure as well as complete satisfaction of understanding the nuances of
language in the text under consideration.

Fowler, Roger (ed.) (1966) Essays on Style in Language. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Freeman, Donald C. (ed.) (1971) Linguistics and Literary Style. New York: Holt, Rinehart &
Winston.
Leech, Geoffrey N, (1969) A Linguistic Guide to English Poetry. London: Longman
McRae, J. (1998) The Language of Poetry London: Routledge.
Sebeok, Thomas A. (1960) Style in Language. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
Simpson, Paul (2004) Stylistics, London/New York, Routledge.

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